Judge who decided NOT to jail child sex abuser slammed after his 'disturbingly lenient' decision

A children's charity today condemned the sentencing policy of a judge as "disturbing", after he had a second child sex case referred to the Court of Appeal.

In January, Judge Julian Hall, sitting at Oxford Crown Court, imposed a three-year supervision order on a 17-year-old boy who abused two young children, opting not to jail him because he did not believe him to be sufficiently dangerous.

The Solicitor General last night confirmed the case had been referred to the Court of Appeal.

A spokeswoman for Vera Baird, Solicitor General for England and Wales, said that an interested party had asked for the sentence to be reviewed.

She said: "This case was referred to us and we have decided that it merits being referred on to the Court of Appeal. We are currently waiting for a hearing date."

Judge Hall caused outrage last June by jailing for just two years a man who raped a girl of 10.

After being referred to the Court of Appeal, the jail term imposed on window cleaner Keith Fenn, 24, was doubled after being deemed unduly lenient.

Today Claude Knights, director of Kidscape, said of the latest case: "It's another disturbing judgment.

"We are quite worried about Judge Julian Hall. We now have a second child sex offence case involving a judge who has made some very disturbing decisions.

"It has been deemed to be out of line enough to be referred to the Court of Appeal and we would hope that justice will now be seen to be done."

The fact that the "public outcry" had been listened to and the case referred was "very encouraging", Mrs Knights said.

"There will be messages there that I hope Judge Julian Hall will heed," she said.

But she added that the judge had made inappropriate remarks about young victims, and the charity - set up to prevent child sex abuse and bullying - was concerned about his approach.

"If we get another case like this I think there would need to be some sort of review of the judge's knowledge of this area," she said.

"These are real victims and real situations."

At the time of Fenn's sentencing last summer, Judge Hall remarked that the girl, who had sex with Fenn 45 minutes after meeting him in a park in Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, liked to dress older than her years and had appeared as old as 16.

In law, a child of 10 cannot consent to sex.

In the recent case, the unnamed 17-year-old, as part of his three-year supervision order, was banned from contacting children by text, telephone or the internet for 10 years and ordered to sign the sex offenders' register.

He was also banned from living at any property where children stay overnight and from associating with any child under the age of 16 not accompanied by a parent or guardian.

The sister of one of the teenager's victims told the Oxford Mail: "I was gutted when I heard the sentence. It was ridiculous. The hardest thing to do was explaining to my sister why he did not go to prison for what he did to her."

A spokesman for the Judicial Communications Office said today: "From time to time sentencing decisions are referred to the Court of Appeal for them to consider. If they are wrong they are corrected.

"This process shows the strength of the system which provides a proper mechanism for review both of unduly lenient sentences and those which defendants argue are excessive."